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viktor_haagThis should be no surprise to anyone who follows internet buzz about boardgames, but after two plays it seems to me that Railroad Tycoon is, indeed, more approachable than Age of Steam, for several reasons.
The board is huge. The playing space in Railroad Tycoon is just so much larger that it provides more elbow room to players (despite the fact that they can also fill up the board at a faster rate than Age Of Steam). I've played once with six players and once with four players, and neither time did we have the same gut-wrenching competition for space that we've had in practically all our games of Age of Steam. One of the players in the second game commented that he liked the fact that the board was so large you couldn't really see it all easily in one glance: he claimed it forced you to get up and walk around the board to take it in from more than one angle. Mind you, he was the only player that did so during the game.
The bits are glitzy and less abstract. The ownership markers are little plastic trains. The empty-city markers are various bits of period trainyard architecture (water towers, mail posts, and the like). The shares are little squares of cardboard printed to look like a certificate. The money is paper money (as in Monopoly). The board is colourful, with actual terrain painted on it in a "realistic" continental view fashion. Does this mean the production values are higher? I would contend not, actually -- in fact, I prefer the components in Age of Steam. I like the substantial plastic money coins. I like the wooden ownership markers and town markers. But I'm a devotee of the German school that expects these wooden bits, and thinks of them as better than plastic, despite their abstract appearance. Frankly, in Railroad Tycoon, glitz often overwhelms function: those little plastic trains are a hassle (they're too light, unstable, and not really suited in shape to their task); the map board is large, and colourful, but the it doesn't lay flat well (both boards I played on were warped, causing havoc with tile laying) and the non-matte finish means inevitable glare without well-placed lighting; the share certificates add colour, but Age of Steam's share track is much more functional. Still, to those who come from the American school of boardgames, and those who like their train games to look like train games, I can see how the glitz would appeal.
The game is more forgiving. It's darn near impossible to bankrupt yourself in Railroad Tycoon while in Age of Steam bankruptcy is pretty much a rite of passage. However, I think this is an illusion. Sure, you can't knock yourself out of a Railroad Tycoon game completely, but you can knock yourself out of contention just as easily as in Age of Steam. The game is fun, but if you're not very careful with your finances, you're going to find yourself in a situation where you know from very early on that you're playing for second place, or worse.
The game is less confrontational. It's darn near impossible to stop an early leader who plays intelligently. Intelligent play should be rewarded; however, it should still be possible for players to check a leader's progress without doing undue damage to their own positions. Railroad Tycoon's "friendliness" means that an early leader seems pretty much destined to finish at the top. Combined with the previous point, this makes me seriously wonder how much long-term play value this game has when compared with Age of Steam. Age of Steam has flaws, too, but it seems to me a game where smart players can keep each other close throughout the game. This may be an illusion fostered by resource scarcity in Age of Steam, but I prefer games where you're engaged to the end thinking "I could win this, if I just managed to do X". In both my Railroad Tycoon games, I was pretty certain at the end of the fourth turn (maybe a fifth of the way into the game) who would win, and where I would place in the overall scheme of things.
The game is engaging. The interleaved action structure does mean there's very little down time. So, although Railroad Tycoon may not have enough space for player interaction, you're at least kept busy and engaged throughout the game. You don't have to wait long to make your next move; your choices at any given time are usually challenging but not overly burdensome. The engaging quality of the game means that the "fun factor" seems pretty high: the game may not be terribly deep, or terribly challenging, but it presents a mighty pleasant way to pass the time (at least it seems so now, after two plays).
So, who should buy this game?
Well, if you already own Age of Steam and it gets regular play in your group, then I really don't see much argument for you purchasing a copy. That doesn't mean you wouldn't have fun playing it, though; see if you can convince one of your friends that doesn't own Age of Steam to buy a copy.
If you already own Age of Steam but it doesn't get much regular play, because most of the people you play with just don't want the mental calisthenics, or the potential confrontation, involved in Age of Steam, then Railroad Tycoon might be a good buy. It might even be a good replacement -- try it out and see whether in fact you can then pass on your copy of Age of Steam to someone else to help defray the cost of Railroad Tycoon.
If you don't own Age of Steam, but you do own a game like British Rails, Union Pacific, or Santa Fe Rails, and you'd like a game that's in the same general ballpark of complexity, then Railroad Tycoon might be the better purchase for you. Its engaging quality and its general length and complexity remind me a lot of Santa Fe Rails, for example (it's shorter than most plays of British Rails and similar games, but about the same complexity level).
One caveat to any purchaser, though: make sure you have a large table to play on. The board is very big, and you'll also want space between the board edge and table edge on which to put bits and pieces. Most German-style games you can play on a modest kitchen table: Railroad Tycoon will demand about two to three times the table space of Settlers of Catan (for example).
The board is huge. The playing space in Railroad Tycoon is just so much larger that it provides more elbow room to players (despite the fact that they can also fill up the board at a faster rate than Age Of Steam). I've played once with six players and once with four players, and neither time did we have the same gut-wrenching competition for space that we've had in practically all our games of Age of Steam. One of the players in the second game commented that he liked the fact that the board was so large you couldn't really see it all easily in one glance: he claimed it forced you to get up and walk around the board to take it in from more than one angle. Mind you, he was the only player that did so during the game.
The bits are glitzy and less abstract. The ownership markers are little plastic trains. The empty-city markers are various bits of period trainyard architecture (water towers, mail posts, and the like). The shares are little squares of cardboard printed to look like a certificate. The money is paper money (as in Monopoly). The board is colourful, with actual terrain painted on it in a "realistic" continental view fashion. Does this mean the production values are higher? I would contend not, actually -- in fact, I prefer the components in Age of Steam. I like the substantial plastic money coins. I like the wooden ownership markers and town markers. But I'm a devotee of the German school that expects these wooden bits, and thinks of them as better than plastic, despite their abstract appearance. Frankly, in Railroad Tycoon, glitz often overwhelms function: those little plastic trains are a hassle (they're too light, unstable, and not really suited in shape to their task); the map board is large, and colourful, but the it doesn't lay flat well (both boards I played on were warped, causing havoc with tile laying) and the non-matte finish means inevitable glare without well-placed lighting; the share certificates add colour, but Age of Steam's share track is much more functional. Still, to those who come from the American school of boardgames, and those who like their train games to look like train games, I can see how the glitz would appeal.
The game is more forgiving. It's darn near impossible to bankrupt yourself in Railroad Tycoon while in Age of Steam bankruptcy is pretty much a rite of passage. However, I think this is an illusion. Sure, you can't knock yourself out of a Railroad Tycoon game completely, but you can knock yourself out of contention just as easily as in Age of Steam. The game is fun, but if you're not very careful with your finances, you're going to find yourself in a situation where you know from very early on that you're playing for second place, or worse.
The game is less confrontational. It's darn near impossible to stop an early leader who plays intelligently. Intelligent play should be rewarded; however, it should still be possible for players to check a leader's progress without doing undue damage to their own positions. Railroad Tycoon's "friendliness" means that an early leader seems pretty much destined to finish at the top. Combined with the previous point, this makes me seriously wonder how much long-term play value this game has when compared with Age of Steam. Age of Steam has flaws, too, but it seems to me a game where smart players can keep each other close throughout the game. This may be an illusion fostered by resource scarcity in Age of Steam, but I prefer games where you're engaged to the end thinking "I could win this, if I just managed to do X". In both my Railroad Tycoon games, I was pretty certain at the end of the fourth turn (maybe a fifth of the way into the game) who would win, and where I would place in the overall scheme of things.
The game is engaging. The interleaved action structure does mean there's very little down time. So, although Railroad Tycoon may not have enough space for player interaction, you're at least kept busy and engaged throughout the game. You don't have to wait long to make your next move; your choices at any given time are usually challenging but not overly burdensome. The engaging quality of the game means that the "fun factor" seems pretty high: the game may not be terribly deep, or terribly challenging, but it presents a mighty pleasant way to pass the time (at least it seems so now, after two plays).
So, who should buy this game?
Well, if you already own Age of Steam and it gets regular play in your group, then I really don't see much argument for you purchasing a copy. That doesn't mean you wouldn't have fun playing it, though; see if you can convince one of your friends that doesn't own Age of Steam to buy a copy.
If you already own Age of Steam but it doesn't get much regular play, because most of the people you play with just don't want the mental calisthenics, or the potential confrontation, involved in Age of Steam, then Railroad Tycoon might be a good buy. It might even be a good replacement -- try it out and see whether in fact you can then pass on your copy of Age of Steam to someone else to help defray the cost of Railroad Tycoon.
If you don't own Age of Steam, but you do own a game like British Rails, Union Pacific, or Santa Fe Rails, and you'd like a game that's in the same general ballpark of complexity, then Railroad Tycoon might be the better purchase for you. Its engaging quality and its general length and complexity remind me a lot of Santa Fe Rails, for example (it's shorter than most plays of British Rails and similar games, but about the same complexity level).
One caveat to any purchaser, though: make sure you have a large table to play on. The board is very big, and you'll also want space between the board edge and table edge on which to put bits and pieces. Most German-style games you can play on a modest kitchen table: Railroad Tycoon will demand about two to three times the table space of Settlers of Catan (for example).
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 14:22 (UTC)Nope, Railroad Tycoon isn't an 18xx game; it's based on the Voldampf/Age of Steam mechanics by Martin Wallace. I don't think I've every played an 18xx game, actually, although I think I might have played 1830 once long, long ago.
Of the crayon rail games, I have played British Rails, Eurorails, and Empire Builder. Lunar Rails and Iron Dragon are also crayon rail games, but I haven't played them. All the crayon rail games suffer from two problems (I think); they are long for what they offer, and sometimes you can get knocked out early by unfortunate random events (like floods washing out bridges you can't afford to replace). The only one of them that I own is Iron Dragon (and I've never actually played it). I'd far prefer to play Age of Steam or Railroad Tycoon than the crayon rail games, but I'd be willing to try out one of the 18xx games.
Lots of folks have observed that Power Grid is really a rail game in disguise. I own that, plus the France/Italy expansion, and I think it's a wonderful game. It could have used a bit more development, I think: the progress of the game's phases is a bit clunky. But, it's a really good game, and I'd gladly put it on the table just about any time someone wants to play.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 15:37 (UTC)I've only played one 18xx game, once, and haven't had an urge to play another.
I've only played Iron Dragon of the crayon rails -- and do find it a lot of fun, if long (ish). I think the event problem you describe is mitigatable (In my 3-4 times playing ID, I've never run into it, partially because I was advised by my host to keep a bit of spare change just for that puropose, partially because, at least in Iron Dragon, it's pretty rare). And the gameplay, while not amazingly interactive, is fairly satisfying.
Merchants of Venus replicates the pickup-delivery action of a crayon rail game -- without the network building aspect (replacing it with exploration instead). Have you tried it? (I think it's substantially shorter than an crayon rail game, though the chit sorting can still take time).
I'd like to see more delivery (ie, route optimization) games with modern design -- Bean Trader was an attempt at this, but an unsucessful one (as in, it's a bad game, as much as I wanted it to be a good one). But it's an interesting space, and one that doesn't -have- to be filled with the high maintenence games that seem to occupy the playable shelves in the niche.
I do very much like Power Grid, though I haven't tried France/Italy yet. I think the phases get smoother over time (as Puerto Rico's end conditions become less unexpected), though due to the somewhat random nature of how fast you progress through the deck (ie, "does the board stall for a turn or two?"), the endgame sometimes shows up late.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 18:49 (UTC)I've always wanted to try Merchants of Venus, as I've heard good things about it from a number of quarters. Unfortunately, I never got a copy, and finding used ones that are in decent shape seem to require patient attending to EBay and substantial funds... 8)
Mesopotamia looks like a "pick up and deliver" game, but rather light, and I haven't played it yet so I don't know how good it is. I agree that I'd like to see more of these kinds of things, and less "majority control" games -- I'm pretty sure we have enough of those available now...
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 19:21 (UTC)(looks on ebay -- eep! $66 on open auction, or $150 for "buy it now"). Though the last three closed auctions ran for $61 or less.
Haven't tried Mesopotamia. 6.9/10 isn't bad (BGG, of course).
Hmm. BGG on "pick up and deliver" -"stock holding" "BGG rating of 7 or higher" produced the following managable list, ranked by game (I trimmed out expansions and a lot of the data):
Not really that surprising that India and Eurorails are on the list -- nor that Merchant is. If I'd known that AoS and RT were P&D-stock games it would have been obvious that they were on the list too. (I should really pick up and try AoS, I guess).
For the rest? I own Muterer, but haven't tried it (and have been told, possibly wrongly, that it's worse than Verrater). I don't think I've even -heard- of any of the others.
You?
Oh, if it's not obvious, I found your journal by checking the alarums community -- in some ways, I think that's its most important function.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 19:28 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 20:22 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 20:25 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 20:22 (UTC)Let's see -- in my collection, I have:
- one of Verrater or Meuterer (never played, and I can't even remember which I picked up)
- Hansa (light, but I like it)
- Himalaya (I like it, but only played once)
- Serenissima (I'd love to play but the little flag stickers are a major bother... grrr ... don't get me started on those)
- Age Of Steam, plus all expansions
I'd sort of looked at Goldland once, but didn't buy. I'd also mused about getting Kogge on Ebay, but again didn't.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 20:27 (UTC)Haven't gotten a chance to check out the others.